Apr 2, 2015

Coming Out of Hiding

Well, well, well... I was abducted by aliens for roughly three months but I have returned, happy to see that planet Earth remains intact despite my abductors' claims of total annihilation. Granted there were plenty of people and institutions whose utter decimation I was indifferent to even in my saintliest moments, but all in all I am happy to see that the world remains mostly unchanged in the three months since my last post. Monica is still gorgeous and loves me, the dogs are still the sweetest critters on earth and the cats still vomit and pee on everything. Yep, life shuffles along as it always has. Good, I wasn't in any mood for upheaval anyway.

Rumor has it the drum videos I wrote about will be in my hands very soon. Normally I never speak about things that haven't happened yet, but when I mentioned the videos around New Year's I hoped I could create a little excitement for all of you, loyal minions. I was in a very joyous mood what with the holidays and all, and I wanted to share my own excitement with the world. By "the world" I obviously mean the six people who check this blog out regularly, but my own world only consists of about twenty or thirty people anyway, so another six would represent quite a bump in associations for me. That would really increase the number of birthdays I'd have to keep up with and I'd have to think of more clever names like "Dude" and "Killah" to call people whose names would invariably escape me. I'll ask my nephew what kids call each other these days in between the endless rounds of impromptu wrestling that always take place whenever we are in the same room together. Though he's only ten I have to say I "still got it"! As someone who will be forty eight next month, I'll take being able to out fox a ten year old with my old bag of dirty tricks as a sign of my own continued relevance. As long as tickling renders any would be attacker defenseless I'll feel pretty good about my chances in the rough and tumble real world.

Spring is here, and all of the extra obligations that come with holidays for the express purpose of slowing down a bands' momentum have come and gone. It's time to ramp things up again. It's an all too familiar pattern but sadly, there is little that can be done about the fact that you often begin to forget what the other members of your band look like between Christmas and mid-March. Confessor had its first full band practice in a couple of months just last week. There have been all kinds of things that have kept us from being able to get together in the last several weeks. People have moved or been out of town, new work spaces have had to be remodeled at night after a full day of work, and snow shut the city down a couple of times since the beginning of the year. I have had to entertain myself by imagining how awesome new riffs could be of only teleportation were possible. Hell, half of last week's practice was spent catching up with each other. "Cary, right? I'm Steve."

Hopefully things really will begin to pick up now that we have steady schedule mapped out for practicing. We have sent the first two songs to Scott for him to begin writing vocals. Writing has always been a slow process for us, but hopefully Marcus and I can stay on top of things enough that the other guys will be able to learn from us pretty quickly. Marcus has been able to keep meeting me down at the space throughout this slower time of year, which has been great! I think I may have snapped had he been too wrapped up in other things to keep things flowing. Plus, it'll be far better to have a guitarist who can show them what's going on than to have me try explaining riffs and ideas to two guys who look at me like I'm speaking some alien language. Believe me, most of the riffage I have come up with in the last few weeks has been on the mathy side of things, so I would definitely have a harder time showing the guys my ideas were Marcus not able to get a solid jump on things. I am really excited about the potential these riffs have, and the recordings we have made at the space are beginning to reflect my attempt to throw everything, including the kitchen sink into our newer tracks. As far as I'm concerned "it's ON"! I need to make a statement. More on that as these songs progress.

I hope that winter was not too harsh on any of you or your families. It got into the single digits here a couple of times, which is pretty unusual here. Lots of snow, too. Funny how when you lose power in the middle of a snow storm for a couple of days your house gets cold, fast!. It's spring now though, and this is when Raleigh is at her prettiest. Soon enough we will have pollen so thick it will look like yellow smoke from a fire fifty miles from here. My head hurts just thinking about it! It's good to finally come out of hibernation! Three months without anything to write about has sucked... big time. I think I'll post more random BS for you guys to chew on. I feel like we all need to catch up just like the members of the two bands I'm in!

10 comments:

Nice to hear that all is well. I live in Wisconsin and the winter went by fairly quickly for once. I wanted to say that the Loincloth album is harder for me to understand than the first time i heard Atheist. The title track is massive. That groove that is stuck in there is like two guys slugging another guy who is stuck in molasses. That is good. It's rare to hear grooves that aren't following the Suffocation form of groove. Also, I wanted to congratulate you guys on your first album and it being part of the collective of great cd's that came out in 1991. The only ones that i will mention will be yours, Coroner, Voivod, and Atheist. That is sort of like being part of the NBA elite in the late 80's to the early 90's. Keep the music comin'.P.S. If you haven't heard of a band called "The Dying Light", check them out sometime. "Serve the Hidden Masters" would be a good song to hear.

Thanks for the tip! And I don't mind being compared to a classic era of NBA heavyweights at all! Were the shorts longer yet, or are we the kind of late 80's metal that would wear mid-thigh length shorts? You know what... there are pictures that do not lie. We were in some rather unfortunate shorts back then, and now we are old enough that shorts are simply inappropriate. Our time to shine, whether it be our pasty thighs or our fantastic gym shorts collection, may have slipped right past us. Just try and picture me hanging on to the rim while Kareem gets a face full of Sheltonian Shame. Hope you can still enjoy the game now!

You're back...yay! You didn't miss much. I don't think? I don't know really. I barely leave the house these days. I presume nothing interesting happened or we would know about it. I was wondering how the writing process worked for Confessor, and with line-up changes and stuff, would the newer stuff still sound like Confessor. But it seems like you are the main contributor, whether it's riff ideas or drum parts/rhythm ideas. As well as the other guys bringing in their ideas too, I'm sure. No idea what my point is! I'm just wondering, what's the secret ingredient Confessor have that makes them so much better than everyone else, is all : )Obviously, I can't wait for my eyes, ears and brain to finally get a hold of those drum videos. Ill probably give up drumming forever after watching them, but it will be worth it!

I got the second round of the rough draft Monday night as Marcus and I got to the practice space. The subtle change ended up being a great step in an even better direction. But you can't stop playing drums, man! You have to Take Hold of the Flame and Fight Fire with Fire, and many other metal titles! Drum until you drop, good Keith! Oh, the secret ingredient... complete ignorance of music theory. Now you know.

Here in Limerick, every six months there is an all-day metal festival held. It's just local bands from around the country but a really great day and completely free in. Metalheads from around the country travel down to share in this celebration of heavy music...as well as fall down drunk and block up the toilets and stuff like that. But I met up with Dave again and hung out for a while, chatting about all things Confessor and planning the trip we are going to take next time you guys are in Europe. As well as trying to think of a way to get Confessor over to Ireland somehow. Plans fuelled by beer, true! But plans nonetheless. I don't normally drink but I do have a few at this event, the once or twice a year I might get to it. But the hangover I now have, well, it's just not worth it is it. Big pot of tea and I'll be grand though : )

Man! It's so cool that you and Dave have been able to meet a couple of times now. He seemed so moved by the Day of Doom experience. I know I sure was! I don't drink either for precisely the reason you mentioned... it ain't worth it the next day! I haven't had a beer since 1992 ( my last sip was on Gods of Grind ) and I haven't been hammered since my 31st birthday when I slept under a tree on my way back home. I'll have a couple of shots if friends are really persistent a parties, but it's really just to shut them up so I can enjoy myself without being harassed. My friends have 'good intentions', but once the alcohol gets flowing they want everyone to join in. So I guess trying to lure ME over to Ireland with the promise of beer won't work, but try Cary and Chris. They love the stuff!

Haha Thats funny because, my last time getting really hammered, Laura found me asleep outside a music shop at 6:00 in the morning! I was young and silly in those days! Im just silly now... Ah, complete ignorance of music theory...I'm on the right track so, that's for sure : )